10 Years of my Little Bear

My Kara Bear is 10 years old today. We got home late last night, and I was sooo ready for bed. But I realized I hadn't wrapped her gifts, so I stayed up to get those done. On the way to bed I had heard the girls wondering if I would put streamers or balloons in the hallway. Ben said Evie was asking about it earlier in the day as well, so I thought I'd better stay up and do something. I fell asleep on the couch, and woke at 2:30 with a balloon still in my mouth, all drooly, and another in my hand. I'm glad I woke up though, so I could finish blowing up 10 balloons, and decorate her door. I've been using the same crepe paper streamers for several years now, and finally reached the end of the rolls. So there weren't as much streamers as I'd have liked, so I just tried to put them about at her height.

Around 7:30, I heard a little voice exclaim, "What the heck!" She was not expecting to have been streamered into her bedroom. I jumped out of bed and grabbed the camera in time to see her just as she was running through the barrier. The camera took a second to adjust for the light, so the picture I got was just after she broke free.

Kiersten and Evie sure got a kick out of it, and wanted to wrap her up with the streamers.

They know where to find the birthday gifts! They didn't even want to eat breakfast before getting these opened, but I made them at least wait for Daddy to wake up.

Marvel super hero tsum tsums! Couldn't have planned a more perfect combo for this girl. She got Spiderman, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America. This was her gift from Kiersten.

The gift Evie had ordered for her ended up getting canceled on us, so I let her give Kara a shopkins puzzle that I found on clearance right after Christmas. She's sort of over shopkins, but she loves puzzles, and this is one you get to color.

Kiersten and Evie got cute new robes a few weeks ago. Kara was sad that they didn't have her size. She's been bringing it up ever since, because the robe she's been wearing is a size 6, so the arms were pretty short. She was very glad to open this Minion robe. She wanted to change into it right away.

Ben and I couldn't agree on what we wanted her big gift from us to be. So we each got her something separate. Ben got her a huge K'nex set. It's actually meant to be used in a school classroom. There are so many little pieces, but lots of cool things she's going to be able to build. Right now she's working on making a working fishing rod. I think she will need a little help from Ben. 

I really wanted to get her a pet. She loves animals, and being around them brings out a very sweet side of her that's hard to get out sometimes. Since I couldn't get Ben to agree to a cat, I talked him into a hamster. We told her that we needed to run a few errands, which she grudgingly agreed to. The first store we were going to stop at wasn't open yet, so we said, "let's run into Petsmart to look at a possible new fish tank for Evie's fish". The girls were excitedly looking at birds, gerbils, hamsters, and a cat that looked EXACTLY like our late pet, Daisy. It was a little hard for me to walk away from her. Ben walked up to the register with Kara and asked for his preordered items. The cashier started handing over a hamster cage, hamster ball, bedding, and food. It didn't take her but a minute to figure out she was getting a little pet for her birthday. She was almost afraid to believe it at first, since we keep saying no pets. It took her a while to pick out the perfect one, but she found a sweet new friend. There was a really cute, furry, white one, but she was a biter, so she made the smart decision to take home the calmer one.

The names she's already gone through were as follows: Harry Potter, Nibbles, Sasha, Nibbles again, Chocolate Chip (CC), Almond, and finally, Sprinkles. I think Sprinkles is the final name, since she made an adoption certificate and taped it onto her cage.

Our house was full of squeals today.

She's a pretty cute hamster, and at least double the size I was imagining. She's a Syrian Longhair.

Evie is just thrilled with her. She keeps calling her "our hamster", which Kara is quick to correct her on. She prefers we call her "Kara's hamster".

 

All 3 of them spent most of the day just watching her and laughing. She does some pretty funny stuff. I was surprised when she knocked her food bowl over. I reached in and turned it back over. She then dug through the bedding and picked up every single piece of food and placed it back into the bowl with her mouth. I was not expecting that. Kara put some of the bedding up in the top "house" area, and she brought all of it back down through the tube piece by piece. I guess she prefers to keep that space bedding free.

Since she'll be having special cupcakes at her party next week, I only wanted to make her a small cake today. She chose the cupcake pan. Ben actually broke it in half trying to flip it over, but I just iced right over the split, and you couldn't tell. The girls wouldn't have cared anyway. I was sloppier than usual with the decorating, so I quickly made some chocolate suckers to make it look cuter. It turned out okay, if a little sloppy.

For her birthday dinner she wanted chocolate pancakes and bacon. So that was easy enough. I tried to make a huge hamster shaped pancake, but it broke apart when I tried to flip it. So I just used the round ones and made smiley face plates.

My birthday girl! She was just thrilled when she asked if she's a "tween" now, and my answer was, "well... I guess so."

Quite a lot of sugar was had with pancakes for dinner and then birthday cake. I don't think anyone was able to completely finish their cake, let alone eat the chocolate suckers.

She was enamored with these candles that have colored flames. I myself, was impressed.

Thinking of a wish...

Hopefully it will come true!